The Biden administration recently announced the deadline for employees of federal contractors covered by Executive Order 14042 to be vaccinated for COVID-19 will be extended to Jan. 4, 2022. Previously, the Safer Federal Workforce Task Force set a deadline of Dec. 8, 2021, for federal contracts entered into or modified after Oct.15, 2021.

As we previously reported, last week the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) released its COVID-19 Vaccination and Testing Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS), which will require employers with 100 or more employees to mandate vaccination or weekly COVID-19 testing of employees beginning Jan. 4, 2022. On the same day, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) also released an emergency regulation that will require employees at Medicare- and Medicaid-participating facilities to be vaccinated by Jan. 4, 2022.

The deadline for federal contractors to comply with Executive Order 14042’s vaccination requirements was changed to correspond with the ETS and CMS deadlines in order to make it easier for employers with multiple facilities to comply with all federal vaccination requirements.